Out of the North   By: Howard V. (Howard Vigne) Sutherland (1868-)

of the

NORTH

[Illustration]

HOWARD V. SUTHERLAND

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

IDYLLS OF GREECE Series One IDYLLS OF GREECE Series Two THE WOMAN WHO COULD THE LEGEND OF LOVE IDAS AND MARPESSA

OUT OF THE NORTH

[Illustration: JOAQUIN MILLER]

OUT OF THE NORTH

By Howard V. Sutherland

With a Foreword by Joaquin Miller

[Illustration]

New York Desmond FitzGerald, Inc. Mcmxiii

Copyright 1913 by DESMOND FITZGERALD, INC.

To FREDERICK H. RANDALL

CONTENTS

Page Frontispiece, Joaquin Miller, Dawson, Y. T. Foreword by Joaquin Miller The Northern Light 1 In Winter 2 Lyric 3 Dark Days 4 The Unanswerable 5 Vain Dreams 6 December 7 The Unassuageable 8 Father Judge S. F. 9 The Light o' Love 10 11 Two Quests 12 The Return of the Sun 13 Klondyke Roses 14 A Song for the Return of Birds 15 The Forest Cotillion 16 The Spruces of the Forest 17 The Wild Lover 18 Homeward Bound 19 Approaching Night 20

FOREWORD

Songs from a far away world; a cry from another sphere. To those of us who once experienced the still and pitiless cold, a cry terribly suggestive of the horror charged gloom, of the icy silence as unbroken as that of unfathomable deeps, of the stern and uncompromising individuality of a disturbed and vengeful North.

Yet one is also reminded that, even in the Klondyke, in due season the brooding spruces are awakened from slumber by the songs of happy throated songsters, that the melancholy of the forest is brightened by gay flowers. The weight is then lifted from men's hearts; singing is heard in the cabin, and the sound of laughter on the trail. When the mighty Yukon is open to the Behring Sea, the far North is in touch with the world and men are glad.

But the Arctic summer is short lived. The days of the bird and the flower and the rippling creeks are numbered. Soon the sky turns grey, the wind chants the sun's requiem, the snow falls; and then returns the cold, the gloom, the feeling of isolation, the indescribable terror.

I heard these songs sung in the Arctic, the singer at my side these songs of nature, songs of hope, home, heart. They seem a part of my life. I heard them as the cry of a lone bird in the vast silence of eternal snows.

JOAQUIN MILLER THE HEIGHTS, CAL. Nov. 15th '99

The Northern Light

Who drapes that mystic veil across that everbrooding sky? Who hues it with a soul of pearl? Who draws it to and fro? Who breathes upon it with the breath that makes it glow and die, Lighting that crystal river, those mountains cowl'd with snow?

In Winter

Beneath the snow the mosses sleep Amid the forest's silence; Above, the stately birches keep Unbroken vigils.

The spruce trees dream of summer hours And birds that carrolled sweetly, Of gentle winds and smiling flowers That died too quickly.

Lyric

Tell me, tell me, gentle stars, Ever watchful, ever bright, From your stations in the sky Do you see my love to night?